I have a subscription to Ancestry.com census collection. I found most of the census records for my direct line so I decided to start on the siblings of my direct lines. I did this in hopes of finding someone else searching in my area and to answer questions and tie in surnames that keep showing up. It has really helped, and I hope to break through a couple of my brick walls soon.

While entering the exact information, such as Samuel M Robinson, I was not getting anywhere in some cases. I then started doing all kinds of combinations. Examples: No first name, just last name and use “soundex.” Enter state and county where they should be if you know it. Enter the place of birth and year with two years either way. Then you can weed through the index and see if any match. Sometimes if the husband's name does not come up put in the wife or children's’ names.

When the census takers entered information, they did not always use the person’s legal name such as Jane Anna Martin. It could have been Jennie or Ann or even a nickname of Polly. Sometimes they just used initials, or Thos for Thomas, Sml for Samuel, and sometimes they put their middle initial first. Example Samuel Martin Robinson would be M Samuel Robinson.

This is just a reminder to use...

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